Fred Fuller
Moderator Emeritus
I never met a Cinderella 870 that I wouldn't adopt, if the price and condition were right. But yesterday a Cinderella of a different sort followed me home.
It was a typical expedition to Fayettenam- I had a doctor's appointment, and a lunch meeting at Thai Pepper with a good friend who just got back from A'stan the night before. After lunch we trolled the string of FFL dealers we favor along Bragg Boulevard. At the last dealer's shop, which features a 30-foot long double sided floor rack of used long guns, I noticed something different. A loooong shotgun barrel protruded from among the more conventionally sized rifles and shotguns on the rack.
It was a Stevens Model 520 pumpgun. It had been a long time since I saw one of these old girls, the last one being a US military marked riot gun that a friend had bought in an estate sale several years ago (for a mere $125 I might add). Obviously this one was a purely civilian sporting gun, given its 30" full choke barrel.
It showed little wear from use, but some storage inattention was evident from a freckling of rust here and there and a thick coat of dust in the crannies and recesses. But the bore was bright and shiny and the action, though dry and gummy, felt solid and mechanically sound. Exterior metal finish was at least 80% overall.
Unfortunately the stock was badly cracked in several places at its junction with the receiver, to the point that a chunk was missing on the right side of the lower receiver tang. Luckily it isn't oil soaked and rotted, so it can be repaired with fiberglass if a replacement doesnt offer itself to hand at a reasonable price.
Other than that, there was nothing to criticize. The asking price came to $180 out the door. Given today's inflationary environment, IMHO guns in the safe are better than dollars in the bank. And so out the door this one went, after the paperwork was done. The paperwork was pretty irrelevant in this case- the old girl lacked a serial number, not unusual among working class guns manufactured before the Gun Control Act of 1968 came along.
I've been casually looking for a field grade Winchester Model 12 at a reasonable price for some years, with the intent of converting it to the equivalent of the riot gun I used to carry when riding reserve for a small-town Alabama police department. I wanted a Model 12 because I have long wanted a reliable take-down pumpgun. I'm satisfied enough with an M4gery as a carbine- punch two pins and you have two components short enough to easily pack into luggage hard or soft. But I wanted a shotgun that would do the same thing. And that's about the only real drawback to my beloved 870- no matter what else you do, you can only make the receiver part so short due to the fixed magazine tube.
The Stevens Model 520 is a classic design from the master himself, John Moses Browning. Browning's Patent Number 781,765 was filed for on 10 July 1903 and granted on 7 February 1905. The design is an artifact of the shift in sportsmen's tastes from single shots and double barrels to the new magazine repeaters, both pump and lever action, from any number of manufacturers. The old J. Stevens Arms and Tool Company of Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts had a history since 1864 of producing successful single shot and double barrel shotguns, and they wanted to get on board the burgeoning pumpgun movement too.
So the company bought the manufacturing rights to the new design from JMB in the spring of 1903, and the Stevens Model 520 entered the marketplace early in 1904. It would stay in production until the similarly-designed but more streamlined Model 620 completely supplanted it in 1932.
The Model 520 has a long history as a fighting shotgun. The history of Stevens fighting shotguns goes back at least to the days when a Stevens-manufactured Wells Fargo 'messenger gun' was used by Wyatt Earp to kill "Curley Bill" Brocius at Iron Springs (now Mescal Springs), Arizona in the aftermath of the famous gunfight at the O. K. Corral.
At the request of the War Department when the US entered World War I, Stevens submitted a prototype trench gun based on the Model 520 sporting shotgun. The prototype's 20" cylinder bore barrel was outfitted with a Stevens-made bayonet adapter and a perforated sheet-metal barrel shield necessary when using a bayonet mounted on a hot-barreled shotgun.
The early 520s featured the 'humpback' receiver typical of the Browning Auto 5 shotgun, plus an additional "step" machined into the top of the receiver profile. Later 520s had a straight profile to the top of the receiver. Also, the early 520s had the old style Browning 'suicide safety,' a sliding safety bar set into the front of the trigger guard and protuding inside, that had to be pushed forward to fire and slid back to safe.
The military version of the Model 520 made a good impression on the War Department, but it arrived on the scene too late to really compete with designs from Remington and Winchester. Still, it is believed that a small number of Model 520 Trench Guns were delivered to the War Department before the Armistice was signed. With the Armistice, all military contracts were cancelled.
Coming up soon: The Model 520, The Depression, and World War II
lpl/nc
It was a typical expedition to Fayettenam- I had a doctor's appointment, and a lunch meeting at Thai Pepper with a good friend who just got back from A'stan the night before. After lunch we trolled the string of FFL dealers we favor along Bragg Boulevard. At the last dealer's shop, which features a 30-foot long double sided floor rack of used long guns, I noticed something different. A loooong shotgun barrel protruded from among the more conventionally sized rifles and shotguns on the rack.
It was a Stevens Model 520 pumpgun. It had been a long time since I saw one of these old girls, the last one being a US military marked riot gun that a friend had bought in an estate sale several years ago (for a mere $125 I might add). Obviously this one was a purely civilian sporting gun, given its 30" full choke barrel.
It showed little wear from use, but some storage inattention was evident from a freckling of rust here and there and a thick coat of dust in the crannies and recesses. But the bore was bright and shiny and the action, though dry and gummy, felt solid and mechanically sound. Exterior metal finish was at least 80% overall.
Unfortunately the stock was badly cracked in several places at its junction with the receiver, to the point that a chunk was missing on the right side of the lower receiver tang. Luckily it isn't oil soaked and rotted, so it can be repaired with fiberglass if a replacement doesnt offer itself to hand at a reasonable price.
Other than that, there was nothing to criticize. The asking price came to $180 out the door. Given today's inflationary environment, IMHO guns in the safe are better than dollars in the bank. And so out the door this one went, after the paperwork was done. The paperwork was pretty irrelevant in this case- the old girl lacked a serial number, not unusual among working class guns manufactured before the Gun Control Act of 1968 came along.
I've been casually looking for a field grade Winchester Model 12 at a reasonable price for some years, with the intent of converting it to the equivalent of the riot gun I used to carry when riding reserve for a small-town Alabama police department. I wanted a Model 12 because I have long wanted a reliable take-down pumpgun. I'm satisfied enough with an M4gery as a carbine- punch two pins and you have two components short enough to easily pack into luggage hard or soft. But I wanted a shotgun that would do the same thing. And that's about the only real drawback to my beloved 870- no matter what else you do, you can only make the receiver part so short due to the fixed magazine tube.
The Stevens Model 520 is a classic design from the master himself, John Moses Browning. Browning's Patent Number 781,765 was filed for on 10 July 1903 and granted on 7 February 1905. The design is an artifact of the shift in sportsmen's tastes from single shots and double barrels to the new magazine repeaters, both pump and lever action, from any number of manufacturers. The old J. Stevens Arms and Tool Company of Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts had a history since 1864 of producing successful single shot and double barrel shotguns, and they wanted to get on board the burgeoning pumpgun movement too.
So the company bought the manufacturing rights to the new design from JMB in the spring of 1903, and the Stevens Model 520 entered the marketplace early in 1904. It would stay in production until the similarly-designed but more streamlined Model 620 completely supplanted it in 1932.
The Model 520 has a long history as a fighting shotgun. The history of Stevens fighting shotguns goes back at least to the days when a Stevens-manufactured Wells Fargo 'messenger gun' was used by Wyatt Earp to kill "Curley Bill" Brocius at Iron Springs (now Mescal Springs), Arizona in the aftermath of the famous gunfight at the O. K. Corral.
At the request of the War Department when the US entered World War I, Stevens submitted a prototype trench gun based on the Model 520 sporting shotgun. The prototype's 20" cylinder bore barrel was outfitted with a Stevens-made bayonet adapter and a perforated sheet-metal barrel shield necessary when using a bayonet mounted on a hot-barreled shotgun.
The early 520s featured the 'humpback' receiver typical of the Browning Auto 5 shotgun, plus an additional "step" machined into the top of the receiver profile. Later 520s had a straight profile to the top of the receiver. Also, the early 520s had the old style Browning 'suicide safety,' a sliding safety bar set into the front of the trigger guard and protuding inside, that had to be pushed forward to fire and slid back to safe.
The military version of the Model 520 made a good impression on the War Department, but it arrived on the scene too late to really compete with designs from Remington and Winchester. Still, it is believed that a small number of Model 520 Trench Guns were delivered to the War Department before the Armistice was signed. With the Armistice, all military contracts were cancelled.
Coming up soon: The Model 520, The Depression, and World War II
lpl/nc
. Fortunately the ceiling and the roof (not to mention the windows) were all that suffered. 
. I've given it a lick-and-a-promise cleaning and it has slicked up to a wonderful degree. The bore lived up to its promise completely once the dust was wiped out, and the chamber looked good too. BTW, this one is clearly marked on the chamber for 2 3/4" shells. Right now it's sitting in the corner muzzle down so nothing drains into the stock to cause more problems.
